Against All Odds
by K. Elisabeth
Summary: Booth is seriously injured and lands in Intensive Care, leaving Brennan only able to hope that he will come out of it alive, against all odds. Oneshot, BB and Hodgela.


**A/N:** I know I have been really awful at updating my current chaptered Bones fic The Hands in the Snow, but I've had a lot going on, most notably my friend being admitted to the ICU after a severe head trauma. He is currently in a medically-induced coma to give his brain time to heal from the accident... but things don't look good. Many of the doctors right now think he may spend the rest of his life as a vegetable, but we're just trying to stay POSITIVE despite the pessimism of some of the doctors that have seen him. He is young and strong, and God willing, he will make it.

Anyway, I wrote this one-shot with him in mind, with the hope that people can come out of horrible circumstances... even against all odds. I dedicate this to him with all of my heart, and am praying for a miracle.

* * *

"It's not your fault, Bren," Angela said, touching a hand to her friend's shoulder. She felt Brennan recoil beneath her, cringing at the thought of touching another human being. Angela removed her hand and Brennan remained silent, a layer of ice coating the room. The scuffed linoleum floors, the bright, buzzing fluorescent lights, the vinyl chairs thrown together in clusters around coffee tables littered with tissue boxes and Southern Living magazines; everything grew cold, crackled as it froze. She would freeze the world from the inside out.

"I'm going to the cafeteria to get some coffee, maybe a Danish; do you want anything?" Angela asked, trying again to forge a connection with Brennan, to at least get her to communicate. Brennan's head dipped lower, eyes trained on the worn floor, and Angela sighed.

"I'll be back," she said, moving her hand as if to touch her friend's head, but deciding against it. It was hard to know with her, whether to reach out or leave her be. To know which one would do more harm.

"How's—" Hodgins began as he crossed paths with Angela as she left the ICU waiting room, but Angela hooked her elbow through his before he could finish his question, spinning him around and dragging him with her.

"No change, and she doesn't want company," Angela said, taking Jack with her to the cafeteria. Cam would still be there, leaning against the cold glass pane that overlooked the city beneath them. Sweets would come soon, but his words of encouragement would be hollow. Ambulances wailed in and out of triage, and packs of smokers wandered to and fro between the hospital and the benches on the inner fringe of the parking lot.

The hospital lit itself from the inside out as a seamless midnight sky closed in on them, stars hiding from the city's light. They would take strong, bitter coffee as black as it came from a cart parked next to the buffet, letting it burn as it both antagonized and soothed their shot nerves. Twelve o'clock, one o'clock, two; it didn't matter. They didn't need caffeine to keep their eyes peeled, their worn bodies pumping with pent-up anxieties and frustrations. They didn't need the help staying awake, but as a comforting act, they took it.

A lone cup stood unattended at the end of the table, intended for Brennan, but she would not come for it.

_Seven, eight, nine, ten…_ Brennan counted in her head, ticking off the linoleum tiles that started at one end of the waiting room and trailed across to the other. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. She counted them back and forth, then left and right, then diagonally, then around the perimeter of the room. She counted them in every direction she could until she ran out of ways, then began counting the ceiling tiles instead. Anything to keep her mind moving, focused, task-oriented. When she ran out of things to count she picked up a Southern Living from the previous fall, flipping through its worn pages.

_I don't read this pointless drivel,_ she thought to herself.

_It's leisure reading, Bones, for fun. You know, fun?_ His voice ribbed at her no-nonsense attitude in her head, encouraging her to relax for once, enjoy the things that normal people enjoyed.

_Not without you,_ she thought harshly to herself, closing the magazine and flinging it on the coffee table. It skidded across the waxed surface, picking up a Sports Illustrated and a box of tissues along the way and knocking them all to the floor. A woman across the room looked up at the sound of the items hitting the ground and warily caught Brennan's gaze. Brennan stared at her coldly, as if daring her to make a comment. The woman didn't, and returned to her quiet sniffling.

Six months ago when Booth was shot, she didn't come. She held him, cradled his head in her lap until the ambulance came, clothes soaked through with his blood. When they strapped him onto the stretcher, she held his weak grasp until they loaded him into the back of the ambulance, letting him go only at the request of the EMT. She stood back as the doors shut and the vehicle went wailing into the night. And she did not follow.

She drove herself home, blood caked and drying on her pants and sleeves. She pressed the apartment door shut behind her quietly, turning the lock until it clicked. She locked herself in the bathroom and turned the shower on, waiting for steam to fill the room. Then she slowly stripped off her bloodstained clothes, piece by piece, letting them hit the floor. Jeans, shirt, bra, panties. She stood naked in front of the fogged mirror, reflection reduced to a blurry outline. Just how she felt—a blurry outline of the person she was. Had been.

She looked down at her pale skin, streaked with dried blood like war paint. Darkening from the fresh red it had been when it poured hot from his body to a deep, somber crimson, then a flaky brown, almost like mud. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

She stepped into the shower and let the scalding water attack her skin. It burned, but she did not cry out; instead, she turned it hotter. She felt as if her skin should pop and sizzle, should melt off, should turn to a milky wax and morph into a misshapen, once-human figure, stuck to the insides of the tub. She watched her skin turn from white, to pink, to a deep red. She watched as patches of red spotty heat rash erupted on her blighted body, increasing in size and intensity as the minutes ticked by. She did what she found she was good at—watching. She deposited a squeeze of body wash onto a pouf and began scrubbing her skin, and it screamed in agony as she removed it layer by layer, rubbing it raw and letting the soap sting. It had to hurt; it needed to hurt.

When she felt light-headed from the heat and weak from the pain, she turned the water off and stepped onto the plush bathroom rug. She lightly patted her raw, fevered skin with a towel, wincing as it glowed with pain. She wandered into her bedroom and fell naked onto the cool sheets, letting them soothe her skin. She wrapped the comforter around her body and pressed her face into the pillow, and let herself do what she had not yet—cry.

This time, she came. It had been hours, maybe days. Maybe she had put roots down in that spot, forcing her way between the slabs of flooring and sinking herself into this place, becoming one with it. She was not a waiting family or friend—just something growing, something unnoticed melting into the wallpaper and the vinyl cushion, something respiring against all odds. She had not come then but this time she would, and she would not leave until she knew. Alive or dead, she would know, and she would not leave until she did.

While visiting hours were limited, waiting room hours were not, and she could bring a sleeping bag and camp there if it suited her fancy. After the ambulance came screaming into triage, unloading him and passing him into the hands of the E.R. staff, she navigated her way through the sterile, uncomforting hospital corridors until she found it—the Intensive Care Unit. If he made it out of the E.R., this is where he would end up, and she would be there to meet him. She had brought no belongings and looked very homeless in that lonesome corner of the room, all on her own. Not even a book to read. Several times the ICU staff nurses had approached her, asking if she needed anything—coffee, a blanket, the TV remote. She set her jaw and shook her head, sending them away with heavy sighs.

In the far corner of the room, beyond the sniffling woman, two children lay asleep on a slick pleather couch, TV hanging on the wall across from them playing a muted America's Funniest Home Videos. They lay curled up in each other's warmth, sisters from the looks of it, abandoned by the world. Sometime around one in the morning a nurse covered them with a thin hospital blanket and turned the TV to the news station, still muted, touching each of their heads as she passed. Part of Brennan wished she had someone to tuck her in and care for her as she slept, but part of her felt as if it would never sleep again. Every time her eyes slid shut, everything that had happened replayed at lightning speed, and her ears rang with the sound of their screams.

"_You go that way, cut him off around the corner," Booth panted as they ran down a dark alley between two apartment buildings, hot on the trail of a suspected murderer. At the corner of the building they split directions; Booth kept straight, and Brennan veered to the right, preparing to cut off their suspect and give Booth time to jump him from behind._

_She raced down the corridor, the sounds of the suspect's heavy footfalls growing louder and nearer. She was much weaker than Booth physically, but faster, and it wasn't long before she was hot on his heels. He turned and, when he realized she was gaining rapidly, whipped out a firearm and fired a haphazard shot behind him. Brennan fell to the side of the alley, narrowly dodging the bullet and shouting out in pain as her elbow made contact with the concrete._

"_You alright Bones?" she heard Booth holler from around the corner, causing the suspect to stop dead in his tracks._

"_I'm fine!" she shouted, regaining her feet and continuing the pursuit. The suspect, realizing he was between a rock and a hard place, took the next best exit strategy—up. He darted up a nearby fire escape, and was nearly at the second floor by the time Booth had come flying around the corner. Brennan was already half-way up one flight when Booth came plowing behind her, grabbing her shoulders and pushing her against the wall._

"_Stay here," he said, dashing ahead of her. She took a few defiant steps but he turned around, giving her his rarely used 'please don't argue with me' look._

"_He has a gun, he already tried to shoot you. Please, stay here." She bit her lip but conceded, and Booth continued up the stairs, knowing she was safe. _

_She watched uneasily as Booth chased the suspect to the top of the fire escape, three floors up. They engaged in hand-to-hand combat, Booth knocking the assailant's gun down into the alley below. It hit the ground with a crack, sending pieces of the weapon flying in various directions. Brennan began up the stairs, knowing now that the suspect was unarmed, when she heard Booth shout out in surprise._

"_Woah!" she heard, and when she looked up she felt the wind leave her lungs—the suspect had Booth pressed against the railing, hands around his neck, trying to force him over the edge. She took the steps in threes, winding around the landing of the second floor and rapidly approaching the third. When she reached the third landing, the suspect briefly released his grasp on Booth, turning to face Brennan. She pulled back her right fist as if to punch him, then thrust her left forearm forward, making direct contact with the assailant's face—a simple but effective karate move. He fell backwards, colliding with Booth._

_Brennan felt the color drain from her face as she watched the two teeter on the edge, hearing the rusty metal scream under the combined weight of both men. The victim lost his balance and fell completely against Booth, and with one nasty crack the metal ledge collapsed from behind them. Brennan reached out and grabbed for Booth's collar, shoulder, arm, any part of him she could use to bring him back to safety. His weight combined with that of the suspect was too much for her grasp, though, and she felt the material of his shirt rip between her fingers as they launched backwards into the endless air._

_She wasn't aware that she was screaming, that he was screaming, until only one of their voices rang out in the night. She stood motionless, watching the broken metal ledge swing in the breeze, dangling by a few bolts, as the sickening crack of bones echoed up and down the alley._

_She had fled down the steps, nearly breaking her neck as she took the last five steps in one bound, falling to her knees on the asphalt below. She scrambled to her feet and rushed to where she saw the outline of Booth's body lying on the ground, the assailant not far from him, and neither of them moving. _

_She was vaguely aware of the quiet splash the heels of her shoes made as she ran up to Booth's quiet, still form, and of the warm liquid her knees sank into as she fell next to him. It was only when the lights of the ambulance shone down the narrow alley that she saw the pool of red surrounding them, again._

_Not again._

Not again.

"Not again," she whispered, suffocating under the weight of her reverie.

_It's not your fault,_ she heard Angela's voice replay in her head, acid churning in her stomach. It was. It was it was it was it was so unbelievably her fault, and not in the way Fat Pam shooting Booth was her fault, but in a very direct, Newton's Law of Inertia kind of way. An object at rest tends to stay at rest, an object in motion tends to stay in motion, dominoes fall, humans collide, a degraded metal structure can only withstand so much force before it collapses. Then we all collapse, and the universe is at peace but we are not.

_It's my fault,_ she said inwardly, bile stinging the back of her throat. She swallowed hard. _It's my fault._

"Ma'am?" a nurse asked, stepping towards Brennan with kind eyes and clasped hands. Brennan looked up, steeling herself against the worst.

"You're next-of-kin to Seeley Booth, is that correct?" she asked, eyebrows raised and awaiting response. Without hesitation, Brennan nodded. The nurse gave her a weak smile—slightly deflated, but a smile nonetheless.

"How is he?" Brennan croaked, not trusting her voice.

"He's with us," the nurse said. "He's not great, but he's with us." Brennan sank back into her chair, overcome with relief. _At least he isn't dead._

"His condition is stable. For such a bad fall, he got lucky—the damage to his head was minimal, it was his torso that took most of the injury. Seven cracked ribs, both lungs deflated, and a punctured spleen. Luckily the doctors were able to remove the spleen in surgery and stop the bleeding, but he's still on a respirator; his lungs are still having a hard time working on their own. Would you like to see him now?" The nurse explained all of this in one long breath, sounding nearly as worn out as she looked. Brennan nodded, standing up and letting the nurse lead her back into critical care.

She led Brennan back into a private room, dimly lit only by one lamp in the far corner. The rest of the light in the room came from the multicolored monitors hooked up to Booth's body. They beeped and whirred quietly, giving an encouraging reminder that yes, he was still alive, against all odds.

"He's in a medically-induced coma right now, so we can keep an eye on the pressure in his head. If it gets too high—"

"Intra-cranial pressure can lead to brain death," Brennan cut off, eyes unable to move from Booth's stitched, pale face. His eyes were shut peacefully, as if he were simply napping on her office couch, except for the respiration tubes extending from his mouth and the bandages around his battered body. He looked somehow small, broken, lying bare-chested in the hospital bed with a blanket pulled up to his midsection. The nurse nodded, pulling a chair from across the room next to Booth's bed.

"Here, sit," she said, offering Brennan the seat, which she gratefully took. She rested her elbows against her knees, hands clasped together, eyes scanning Booth's face for any sign of her partner. He breathed, but not on his own. He slept, but against his own will. He was broken, bruised, cut, stitched, threads holding together what once was impenetrable.

"You can hold his hand if you like," the nurse said after a few tense minutes of Brennan staring, visually grasping for anything she recognized. She hesitated, staring at his right hand, lying limp by his side on the bed. Two IVs snaked out of his veins, pumping in painkillers and antibiotics, and his thumb was taped to a rigid splint.

"You won't hurt him, I promise," the nurse encouraged, arms crossed. After a moment, Brennan reached out and touched Booth's hand with the tips of her fingers. She was relieved to find that, rather than feeling cold and dead, he felt wonderfully warm and alive. She lowered her palm to the top of his hand, then allowed her fingers to wrap around his. He did not return the grasp, but she could feel his pulse, feel the warmth of fresh, hot blood rippling through his veins. He was very much alive.

Early the next morning, after Angela and Hodgins had retired to Hodgins' place for a few hours of fitful of sleep, they were permitted visitation. The nurse slowly pushed the room door open, letting Angela enter first, followed shortly by Hodgins. When Angela's eyes scanned the room she let out a deep sigh, and Jack reached for her hand, expecting the worst. But it wasn't Booth's battered appearance that had elicited the sigh.

Rather, it was Brennan's sleeping form, slouched into a chair sidled up next to Booth's bed. She was tucked in beneath a thin hospital blanket, head leaned against the back of the chair. Her arm reached out from beneath the blanket, fingers tightly grasping Booth's hand, even in sleep. And in the clarity of the morning sun that peered through the blinds it was obvious that at some point during the night he had returned the urgency of touch, wrapping his fingers gently around hers. Against all odds.


End file.
